Tracking Tiger Global (Week 40) | 03.10-10.10.21
5 Tiger deals this week: Favo, Wise Systems, OnTop, Progcap, CoinSwitch
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Dear subscribers,
Welcome to the 7th edition of Tracking Tiger Global, a newsletter that provides weekly updates on Tiger Global’s latest investments.
5 new deals with Tiger’s involvement were announced this week. The updated dataset can be accessed here.
FAVO (Brazil | $27m Series A | Consumer / e-commerce | Tiger led)
WISE SYSTEMS (US | $50m Series C | Software | Tiger led)
OnTOP (US | $20m Series A | Software | Tiger led)
PROGCAP (India | $30m Series C | Fintech | Tiger led)
CoinSwitch Kuber (India | $260m Series D | Fintech | Tiger followed-on)
FAVO (Brazil | $27m Series A | Consumer | Tiger led)
Founded in 2019 and headquartered in Brazil, Favo is a community group buying / social commerce platform, focused on groceries. It has raised $26.5 million in Series A funding, led by Tiger Global.
“For an average household in Latin America, it is estimated that food and transportation represent between 45% to 55% of the expenses for the low and middle income population.”
“Favo enables under-employed entrepreneurs (typically stay-home mothers) “partners” to create new income streams through steady sales commissions from their own local social network.” “By registering as a seller on Favo’s platform, partners have access to a personalized online store that offers the entire Favo’s product catalog, which today consists of more than 2,500 retail items at reduced prices. It is up to each partner to promote their online store and sell to their community – the most common way is through social networks like WhatsApp or Facebook. The products are stored in Favo’s own distribution centers. Delivery is made directly to the homes of registered sellers / partners within 24 hours”, who complete the last-mile delivery.
Favo currently operates in the metropolitan region of São Paulo city and in the Peruvian capital Lima, and has become a source of income for about 10,000 partner sellers. According to Favo, the platform has already delivered over 700,000 parcels for them since February last year and already has about 160,000 buyers.
The newly raised capital will be invested in logistics and expansion to other cities – Favo is expected to reach at least 20 cities in the coming months and start operating in Mexico as well.
Sources:
WISE SYSTEMS (US | $50m Series C | Software | Tiger led)
Founded in 2014 and headquartered in the US, Wise Systems is an AI-driven routing and dispatching software platform. It has raised $50 million in Series C financing led by Tiger Global Management with participation from new and existing investors that include Section 32, Valo Ventures, Gradient Ventures, and Prologis Ventures.
The company’s mission is to offer the perfect delivery experience for everyone in the process including delivery recipients, drivers, dispatchers and managers.
Key Product modules include:
Scheduler: web-based platform that calculates route plans while factoring in the unique variables and constraints of each operation.
Dispatcher: web interface that allows dispatchers and fleet managers to visualize their fleet through a live map view.
Driver: The Driver Mobile app, available on iOS and Android, gives delivery drivers all the tools they need to manage their delivery day.
Customer Portal: Customers can track their orders throughout the day with accurate real-time ETAs
Wise Systems serves a wide range of industries including food & beverage, parcel & courier, auto parts etc.
Wise Systems saw significant growth over the two past years, growing 300% year-over-year, experiencing increased demand for the company’s autonomous dispatch and routing technology across a number of markets.
Wise Systems “will use the financing to further accelerate product development, market expansion across key geographies, and address the increasing global demand for the company’s next-generation dispatching and routing solutions.”
Sources
OnTOP (US | $20m Series A | Software | Tiger led)
Founded in 2020 and headquartered in the US, Ontop (YC W21) is a multi-country payroll and hiring manager for LATAM. It has raised a $20 million Series A round, led by Tiger Global and Point72 Ventures, with participation from SoftBank’s $100 million SB Opportunity Fund. In total, the one-year-old company has raised $26 million.
“Ontop helps enterprises streamline their international hiring and payment processes by managing contracts, documents, taxes, regulatory compliance and payments with an easy, automated platform.” The platform enables hiring from 150+ countries as per their website.
Its client base “has grown 40% month over month – along with revenue. The platform already being used in 67 countries is transacting millions of dollars per month in international payments as clients make their digital transformations and adapt to the future of work.” “We wanted to go global from the start to show the world that the world has changed and being fully remote lets you roll out global solutions really fast and scale up quickly,” said Julian Torres (co-founder).
Sources:
PROGCAP (India | $30m Series C | Fintech | Tiger led)
Founded in 2017 and headquartered in India, Progcap provides access to fast and flexible collateral-free working capital to small retailers in smaller cities and towns in India. The company has the aspiration to become the largest digital bank for small retailers. It has raised $30 million Series C round, led by existing investor, Tiger Global Management and new investor Creation Investments.
“Progcap focuses on providing fast and flexible collateral-free working capital to retailers in Tier II, III, and IV areas, where retailers typically face challenges in accessing capital for their businesses. This last mile retailer finance solution has roughly half of its customer base new to the credit ecosystem. Its lending platform does risk assessment of these businesses using non-traditional ecosystem data, creating credit scores for customers that are currently left out by traditional financial institutions.”
Some coverage metrics include:
500+ towns
50,000+ accessible retailers
1,000 Cr+ Business volume facilitation
In the last one year, Progcap claims to have expanded business operations across 10 industries, working alongside corporates to help offer financing to their partners. Large corporate partners are now using Progcap’s platform to provide financing to almost 30% of their sub-dealer networks, the company said.
According to the company, it will use the new capital to broaden and deepen the supply chain banking platform for its merchants and corporate network in India. Progcap aims to reach $1 billion in disbursals by March 2022.
Sources:
CoinSwitch Kuber (India | $260m Series D | Fintech | Tiger followed-on)
Founded in 2017 and headquartered in India, Coinswitch enables users to buy and sell cryptocurrencies in India. It has raised $260m in Series D funding, at a $1.9bn valuation, from a16z and Coinbase Ventures. This is a16z’s first investment in India. Existing investors including Tiger Global also participated.
Coinswitch “offers users over 70 cryptocurrencies to choose from, and the trading is instant, said Ashish Singhal, co-founder and chief executive of CoinSwitch Kuber, in an interview with TechCrunch. Users on the app can trade as little as 100 Indian rupees, or $1.3.
CoinSwitch has amassed over 10 million registered users, most of whom are young and first-time investors, he said. More than half of the startup’s user base is aged 28 or below.”
“Coinswitch will deploy the fresh capital to add more asset classes for investment on its app. But he declined to reveal what those asset classes will be. Additionally, it’s also working to add support for institutional clients to use the app, he said. The startup, which aims to amass over 50 million users, says it’s also looking to hire for several roles at the firm, including many in leadership positions.”
Sources: